The percolator is one of the most familiar methods of brewing coffee. It works by filtering boiling water through the coffee grounds over and over. Many people still enjoy this old favorite, especially when it is used with very mild coffees.
A percolator is typically an inexpensive device that includes a hollow container having a handle and a spout, a cover, and a brewing assembly that includes a filter basket, a dripping basket that fits within the open top of the filter basket, and a substantially hollow pump tube that extends through the filter and dripping baskets and terminates near the bottom of the container. In operation, the user places the correct amount of water for the amount of coffee to be made into the container of the percolator, fills the filter basket with the correct amount of ground coffee, assembles the brewing assembly together and inserts the entire brewing assembly within the container of the percolator. The water within the container is then heated from its bottom, either by an integral heat source or an external one such as a stove or campfire, until the water in the bottom of the pot is brought to boiling, or nearly so. The heated water is forced up the pump tube to its top, where it is dispersed downward through the dripping basket and into the filter basket. Once in the filter basket, it flows through the coffee grounds, where it mixes with the coffee, and through perforations in the bottom of the filter basket and into the container, where it mixes with the water contained therein. This cycle is repeated, with each pass through the filter basket resulting in a stronger mixture of coffee in the container, until the resulting coffee is at a desired strength.
“In order to ensure that the wet grounds within the filter basket are not mixed with the brewed coffee during pouring, the entire brewing assembly, including the dripping basket, wet grounds, filter basket, and pump tube, must be removed before the coffee is poured. Unfortunately, because the components of the brewing assembly were in contact with boiling water, they will be extremely hot, requiring the user to use an oven mitt, potholder, towel or the like to insulate her fingers during removal. Because the brewing assembly is recessed within the container of the percolator, it is not easily removed therefrom. Further, the components of the brewing assembly are joined together only by the pump tube, which only extends a short distance from the top of the dripping basket in operation and is recessed even further when a spring is used to support the filter and dripping baskets. These factors make it difficult to securely grasp the brewing assembly during removal, which frequently results in the brewing assembly being dropped and the user being burned. Therefore, the users of conventional percolators must either wait until the brewing assembly has cooled sufficiently or risk being burned while removing it from the percolator.”
The inventor is aware of four United States patents that include some means for making the removal of the filter assembly from a percolator safer. However, each has distinct disadvantages that make them impractical.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,282,196 and 3,323,441, which are related applications that are each titled “Coffee Percolator”, describe improvements intended address the problem of sealing the components of a glass percolator during brewing of the coffee. This percolator includes a cover that has a pair of spring loaded fingers that extend downward to grasp pump tube and secure the brewing assembly within the open bottom of the cover, effectively preventing leakage of the coffee during brewing. Once the coffee is brewed, the cover and brewing assembly are removed as a single unit and are disassembled by depressing a button, which spreads the fingers engaged with the pump tube and releases the brewing assembly therefrom. When new, this system is effective at preventing the brewing assembly from being dropped. However, this system also has significant drawbacks.
First, because the spring-loaded fingers must engage the pump tube, the tube must be in close proximity the cover. This provides very little clearance for the passage of water and coffee, effectively reducing the rate at which water and coffee are allowed to pass through the grounds in the filter basket and vastly increasing the amount of time required to brew the coffee. Second, the spring loaded fingers are prone to fatigue and failure over time. Third, the button release used in this system is prone to inadvertent engagement, negating many of the safety benefits of such a system. Finally, the use of multiple mechanical parts to capture the filter assembly increases the complexity of the manufacturing and assembly processes that must be followed to produce the unit, which increases the overall cost of the percolator.
A similar system is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,939,760 and 4,029,940, which are likewise related applications and are each titled “Percolator”. Like the system discussed above, these patents are directed to percolators manufactured of glass and, in particular, are directed to the problem of preventing a glass cover from falling from the pot and breaking. To solve this problem, this percolator uses a pair of locking arms that extend from the side of the cover to engage slots in the pouring spout to retain the cover thereon during pouring. The percolators also use a set of spring-loaded fingers to grasp the pump tube and a button type mechanism to disengage the cover from the pump tube, in the same manner as described above. Accordingly, these percolators suffer from the same drawbacks inherent in the coffee percolators described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,282,196 and 3,323,441.
Therefore, there is a need for percolator and brewing assembly that allow the hot brewing assembly to be safely removed from a coffee percolator prior to pouring the coffee, that does not require significant changes to current processes of manufacturing percolators, that does not require multiple mechanical parts to operate, that does not require that the pump tube be placed in close proximity to the cover such that very little clearance is provided for the passage of water and coffee, that will not increase the amount of time required to brew the coffee, that is not prone to fatigue and failure over time, and that is not prone to inadvertent disengagement during removal of the brewing assembly.